117i Vikings Discovering Christianity and Paganism

Episode 117i Vikings Discovering Christianity and Paganism

Description: Today Steve is joined again by scholar Annie Humphries to discuss how the Vikings/Norse developed their views on their own traditional religion in light of their interactions with Christianity. We also look at how the Norse in Ireland absorbed, developed and even used Christianity to advance their position in Ireland during the early medieval period.

About Today’s Guest:
Annie Humphries
On Twitter: @GallGaidhel
Education Evolved: @EducationEvolvd www.educationevolvedltd.com/
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Music Provided by:
"Danse Macabre" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
"Virtutes Instrumenti" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
"Crusades" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
"Funeral March for Brass" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
"String Impromptu Number 1" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
"Intended Force" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Agnus Dei X - Bitter Suite Kevin MacLeaod (incomptech.com)
"Folk Round" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
"Celtic Impulse" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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By Pam Brophy, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9124089
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Begin Transcript:
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•Today I am joined again by scholar Annie Humphries to discuss how the Vikings/Norse developed their views on their own traditional religion in light of their interactions with Christianity. We also look at how the Norse in Ireland absorbed, developed and even used Christianity to advance their position in Ireland during the early medieval period. Christianity was well established in Ireland by the time the Norse arrived and Christianity was a powerful cultural force for the Norse to adopt, but also adapt to their own needs and goals. I am very excited to talk about this topic!
•With that, here is the next piece of the mosaic of the history of the Popes of Rome and Christian Church.
[00:00:00] What were some of the similarities and differences between the way the Norse interacted with the locals in Ireland as a posed to Scotland or some of the other, you know, Caltech areas you might call them? Ooh, that's a good question. Um, I feel like Alex Wolf would be the one to read the books on because I have a personal interest in, in the isle of man.
Um, I, I don't think I'd be able to systematically talk about the relationship of say, uh, picks or, or people in Eastern Scotland, um, and their relationship with, with the Norris there. I just, I haven't studied it enough that I I'd be able to, to, uh, I be able to talk about it in detail. Um, I do have to say that that Ireland does have a really thick analystic and as well as this dynastic propaganda.
Um, whereas it's, it's a lot lighter on the ground and I love man in Scotland, so that in of itself might make [00:01:00] my make that, um, uh, last time and now getting into the interaction they had religiously the, could you tell us a little bit about Norse religion? Absolutely. Okay. So Norris religion at this time was aware of and being touched by and being shaped by, um, both Roman religion, as well as Christianity.
Um, there was no sense of a pan Norse Pantheon. There was no sense of a series of, of priesthoods or, or a central. System of, uh, okay. These people go to this school for training and then they go back to their hometown. Um, now there were, you know, religious centers, but they were, they were really only important for, you know, people within one to three days ride or travel.
There was not this concept of, of there is one holy place and everything derives from it. It was very [00:02:00] much a local familial DDD. Got bigger and bigger. Um, you know, there's, there's plenty of anthropological work on, on the cults of, oh then the cults of tear and fill and these gods. Um, so when we talk about north to religion at this time, um, it's, it's a.
It's a religion that is only thinking about itself as it is being replaced. You know, people didn't have to think about what their relationship was to the gods or to land when it was just everything. When it was just the way you did things. And now people are coming with crosses on their chest saying there's only one God, and this is the God.
And now, now these people who have just believed what their ancestors believed are going. I don't know what I believe, but it's not a cross. I feel really close to the store guy. I'm going to wear a hammer. Um, you know, people weren't wearing hammers, uh, 2002 go, they were wearing them. Oh, that's interesting.
Yeah. I was going to ask about that. [00:03:00] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. They, they didn't, they didn't have a sense of, of formal religion. Now that's not to say that it wasn't important to them. It's not to say that there weren't priests, you know, there absolutely were, there were holy sites and, and, you know, really fabulous rights that left behind some really fascinating archeological stuff.
In the ninth century in the ninth, 10th centuries, um, he then re the, the, the act of, of, of worshiping the old God, the foreign Cedar, the old ways, um, was really kind of crystallizing in his, as it was coming to a close recognizing. Um, you know, now people are saying to change the God that you worship. And, and so you had to kind of wrap your head around that, wrap your head around the idea of, um, having to culturally convert, um, and, and change the way you worship and the way you do things.
So, um, Uh, so north religion, you know, like we nowadays, [00:04:00] we're all familiar with Thor and, and, and that, um, mythology, but that mythology that we're using nowadays was pretty much codified at this time. Um, and a few centuries later in ice London in, uh, in the forms of, of Snorri stir listens, um, uh, codifying the north snore Smiths, um, the codex Regius collecting, uh, old Scholastic poetry.
Um, it's, it's, it's powerful stuff. It's, it's, it's amazing stuff, but it's also, you know, the, the, the Swan song of, of, of a really big kaleidoscope of, of ways of seeing the world that had to get collapsed very quickly, uh, in the face of Christianity and then their day-to-day worship. Necessarily, we'd get a, you look in the delayer, uh, children's book of Norse mythology, and they have a chart of Thor here and oh, and here is that how they would have conceived of it or would have gone village to village.
We're [00:05:00] more of a Thor village here. And this is more because it is it's their culture. It's their it's was something that was really ingrained into their. Entire life. And it's not Christianity where it's this, this and this and it's doctrinal. And that it was something that, and maybe imposed isn't the right word.
But that's something that when you adopt Christianity, you're getting this manual of how to do it. Is that how Norse religion would have looked and now a word from our sponsors.
Right. Exactly. It's it's the opposite of that. It's it's is do it yourself. It's it's what was handed down to you? So the way you said that were Thor family or, or in this valley, we honor Frere, um, would, would very much be the way of things that you can kind of see that with, with, I don't know how many Norse names you've encountered, but sometimes you have families or every single kid is a [00:06:00] Thorstein Thor, rust or vault.
That's a Thor fam. Um, you know, and then, you know, gods are, were also be associated with, um, social classes. Uh, you know, um, a blacksmith would probably have a different deity than, than the fishermen's that even village. Um, but there is, there was not this, this one big how to guidebook, there was no dogma to it.
There was, it was, it was. Doing doing right by the way, things had always been done in your area rather than some holy man, um, imposing things from a manual, from a book or something like that. So, um, you know, and even then things would have changed generation to generation because this is all oral culture.